


Take As Needed

by swamplamp



Series: Departures [3]
Category: Succession (TV 2018)
Genre: M/M, Moderate to Severe Domestic Fluff, Sickfic, it's disgusting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:01:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25384963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swamplamp/pseuds/swamplamp
Summary: Greg catches a cold.
Relationships: Tom Wambsgans/Greg Hirsch
Series: Departures [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1771378
Comments: 13
Kudos: 81





	Take As Needed

**Author's Note:**

> What you're about to witness these two knucklefucks do is done within the context of their own wacky alternate universe where sickness can be managed, people can gather in groups, and love and acceptance abound. We're not there yet, folks. Not by a longshot. Let's do our part in bringing those pieces closer to our reality. Americans in particular should continue to wear a mask in public spaces and maintain social distance.
> 
> Now let's see what Tom and Greg are up to.

It occurred to Tom, over dessert crepes on a Wednesday night while walking past an unlit Wells Fargo, that he had friends. He didn’t know when it happened, but he fell into a friendship with Thanh Lo from work. 

Thanh first approached him a couple months back, asking for input on a money management workshop that the campus was putting on for the general public. He taught courses in the Public & Community Health program and apparently did some things with community outreach on the side. Tom continued to know next to nothing about all that, but they hit it off at some indeterminate point. At first, Tom got the impression that Thanh was naïve. He spoke like an idealist and that bothered him. But Tom blinked and, suddenly, he was eating lunch with Thanh on a regular basis. And going out for drinks on weeknights. It was quite possibly an actual friendship.

So, that was where he was, kind of buzzed and shamelessly enjoying a Nutella crepe downtown with his friend Thanh.

“It might be fun, right?” Thanh said. “I’ve been thinking it’s time for me to get back into dating.”

“This Saturday, you said?” he asked, mouth full with the last of his crepe.

“Yeah, you just sort of show up. We could wingman it up. You and me. Thanh and Tom, the dream team.”

“It’s— Yeah, I don’t know.” Of course, Tom hadn’t told him about Greg. “I might be too burnt out from that thing my mom pulled on me back in Minnesota. Memories of it still grip me with fear in the night.”

"Wait, you're talking about... You mean that story from Thanksgiving?" Thanh laughed. “Nightmares even two months later, huh? That sounds pretty rough."

Tom stopped at the corner of the street and crumpled up the parchment paper from the crepe to give himself something to do with his hands. It wasn’t the first time he thought about telling Thanh about Greg. Tom and Thanh had recent divorce in common. They exchanged enough ugly war stories from their marriages that it felt silly to be dishonest with him. And yet.

“How about I get back to you on that one tomorrow?” Tom offered. “I’ll think about it.”

“Yeah, sure. And no worries if you’re not into it, too. Go at your own pace.”

Thanh was at least half a decade younger than him, but a far better teacher. Tom appreciated the guy’s patience. It was something he noticed in him in that community workshop, which drew a mixed crowd. There was an older lady in attendance who clearly couldn’t follow instructions and wasn’t afraid of letting everyone around her know it. There was a pocket of silence where Tom expected a confrontation to follow. He expected Thanh to tell her to sit down and be quiet, but he didn’t. Instead, Thanh smiled and it was genuine. He helped her through the activity and dragged Tom into supervising the others. Sometimes, Tom wondered if he hung around Thanh enough, he’d find a crack in that veneer. So far, he hadn’t.

He wanted to tell Thanh about himself, but he always found a reason not to. In the space of a few months, he passed on a lot of opportunities to slip it into conversation. In the end, he chose to only smile and nod at friendly references to things he once thought he agreed with.

And it was kind of nice to leave that part of himself at home, every now and then. He could be Tom without Greg, absolutely. If he was honest with himself, he held out hope that he could be Tom without being gay. To share that part of himself with anyone, he’d be destroying that hope. No going back. He wasn’t sure he was ready to not go back.

When he got home, he felt sober and slightly morose. He felt the beginnings of a headache needling its way up his temples. He couldn't tell if Greg was home and couldn't bring himself to check. He thought about sneaking in quietly. He wasn't in the mood to talk about how his night went. It was a good night, which made it all the more frustrating that Tom came home feeling this way.

He brushed his teeth with the bathroom door ajar. Soon enough, Greg squeezed in through the narrow opening with his eyes curious and bright like a nosy cat. Tom wiped his mouth on his hand towel as Greg fit himself against the width of Tom’s shoulders. Tom leaned back against his weight, too tired to fuss.

“Hi,” Greg said, placing a kiss to the side of Tom’s neck and smelling him. “You smell like smoke.”

“Well, you smell...” Tom turned his head to nuzzle along his jaw. He smelled fucking great, actually. He smelled clean, but patently Greg-like. Vaguely of cinnamon. The familiar scent of him brought warmth into his chest and goosebumps along his arms.

“I smell?”

“No,” he murmured, distracted. “I dunno. No more talk. Just kiss me.”

Greg nodded and let himself be pulled in around the waist. Tom tongued at Greg’s bottom lip, hungry for the taste of him. Greg drew a hand against the back of Tom’s neck in encouragement. Then he backed off abruptly.

“Hmm?” Tom questioned, alarmed.

“Sorry," he said, eyes on his phone. "I was actually in the middle of texting Kendall. He’s really... talkative today.”

Tom threw him a disbelieving look that went unnoticed. He left for his room. He wasn't interested in talking about the Roys, especially not tonight.

“He’s actually, um—" Greg followed him, slouching against the doorframe. "You know, he's been trying to get me to come to this thing with him in the city.”

Tom sat heavy on the edge of his bed. His lower back ached, just more signs of his advancing age. He felt absolutely fucking old. He stretched against the pain. “So, you’re going to go?”

“It depends.”

“On?”

“I’d go if you went with me.”

At a loss, Tom said, “Well, no. Go without me. You shouldn’t have to skip out on seeing family on my account.”

“I’m pretty sure Kendall only wants to talk business, but he won’t tell me what or why." Greg entered the room to sit next to Tom on the bed. "I think it’d be really good if you came.”

“Why would you— No. Greg, c'mon." He stood, restoring the distance between them. "In what fucking universe would I ever want to see Kendall? You know I can’t see any of them. You of all people should know that.”

Greg stood too. “What do you mean? Why me of all people?”

“I mean, this thing between us? What with the residual smidgeons of credibility I might have back there? If our ‘involvement’ ever gets out to the family, I just— They take one look at us and they'll know. It would fucking ruin me. You get it, right?”

“I thought that maybe—" Greg paused. "No, okay. You’re right. You’re right.”

From across the room, Tom watched Greg's spirits physically fold in on themselves and he felt horrified with himself.

Tom said, “I’m sorry. I just— I’m sorry. This came out a lot rougher than I intended, but I’ve had a long day and—“

“No, it’s okay. I caught you at a bad time, I get it. And, I mean, yeah. It is a bad idea. I’ll let you get some sleep.” Greg didn't even look at him when he left the room.

Alone now, he couldn't bring himself to do anything except press his palm against his forehead and will his thoughts to stop beating away at his head like elephant hooves. He wanted to think of a better apology. Think of how to make things right. He paced the room and paced the room, then stopped to center himself. 

He visualized their relationship as pinpoints on a straight line. The day they met. The day they started working together. The night on a yacht floating somewhere off the coast of Croatia where Tom kissed him, crazed, desperate, and confused. He had wanted so badly to destroy something, but Greg went ahead and outdid him by leaps and bounds the next day with the help of Kendall and that infamous press conference. And then, a long and horrendous time after that came the day that Greg found him, here in this apartment when Tom thought he didn’t have anything left.

In total, he had known Greg for two and a half years. Before the end of the first year, Tom knew him better than he knew most people. Not really on purpose. It was just Greg factoids he picked up through osmosis or maybe the most specific and useless psychic powers ever. Even when Greg wasn’t around, he’d see a stupid ad on a bus stop and know it would make Greg laugh. Or he’d skim a menu and zero in on the exact items Greg would like. He never stopped seeing things in that way. Even in between the time Greg left him for dead and showed up on his doorstep.

When all was said and done, Tom didn’t know why he wanted Greg around. He just knew that he woke up every morning wanting him without a reason at all, and he wondered if that was reason enough. He thought about how much simpler everything would be if he let all this go. He could drop this and leave. Instead, he knocked on Greg's bedroom door. Greg let him inside.

Tom stood there, eyes to the ground. He said, "I don't want to make excuses for myself. I know I need to try harder with this, but... I don’t know. I want to, but...”

Greg sighed quietly, maybe a sign of relief. Maybe a sign of impatience. He brought Tom in closer and pressed the side of his face against Tom’s without a word, the gesture not really anything comprehensible. If anything, it was an acknowledgement. Greg guided him into his bed and they fell asleep, Tom lying on his side imagining the string of his own apologies wrapping around them like spiderwebs.

He remembered a grey morning when Shiv came back after a week of radio silence. This was close to the end of their marriage. He was still in bed. She smelled like rain when she kissed him good morning, then told him that she could tell he was thinking of something else when he kissed her judging by the way his lips twitched. He had no idea how to respond, but it scared the shit out of him.

Tom woke in the middle of the night like a light switched on. It was still dark out, so he focused on the sound of Greg’s steady breathing beside him in hopes that it would lull him back to sleep. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn’t. He slipped out of bed and into the kitchen for a glass of water, feeling out of sorts and unfamiliar with his own apartment. He sagged against a cool plaster wall and thought of the Manhattan penthouse he lived in not even a full year ago. The loss he felt every now and then hurt like hell. When he thought about it, he felt like he was ripped from that life and dropped into someone else’s through mystical forces. He’d see himself and where he was and think, _These aren’t my hands. This isn’t my voice. I need to get back._

He dozed in and out on the living room couch. When the sun came up, Tom laboriously rose from the couch to get ready for the day. Back in his room, he peeked through the gap in his curtains to assess the weather. It was January and it was colder than the city ever got at this time of year. They even got quite a bit of snowfall last week. But not today. The sunlight obnoxiously reflected off of the remaining piles of snow. And it was all far brighter than it had any right to be.

Tom got himself clean and looking pressed and well-rested. Most Thursdays, he saw almost no one, but he kept up appearances regardless. There were not many things he got to keep from his old life, but his clothes were luckily one of them. 

By the time he finished eating breakfast, Greg still wasn't up. Greg slept like a log, but he was generally very good about waking up at a regular schedule. Tom was concerned. Last night, he hadn't really apologized. Not properly. He wondered how much it would take before Greg had enough. Maybe this was it.

Tom busied himself with wiping down the oven, as he listened for sounds from the hallway. Nothing came. He wiped his hands on a dish towel and straightened out his sweater, then crept down the hall to stand by Greg's bedroom door.

"Greg."

No response.

Tom knocked lightly on the door. He wondered if Greg was gone. What if he had left? Tom opened the door and there he was, still asleep. He knelt beside Greg's bed and squeezed his shoulder. "Greg. _Greg_."

He woke with a pained expression. Tom could relate.

"What's up with you, man? It's already like 9:30."

"I don't know what's going on," Greg croaked.

"Are you feeling okay? You look like hell.”

Greg moved his head, slightly. Feebly. His hair was bed-wrecked and his face was still pinched together in pain. A wave of sympathy hit Tom like a football to the face. He reached out to smooth down Greg's hair and cup the side of his face.

“Don’t get too close,” Greg warned. “I think I'm dying. It’s really bad.”

“Nonsense. What’s the matter?”

“My head hurts. And my throat.”

Tom placed the back of his hand against Greg’s forehead. “Well, you don’t have a temperature.”

“Is that bad?”

“You probably just have a cold. What do you normally do when you’re sick?”

Greg held his phone in front of his face, peering at the screen. “I go to work. I have to go.”

“You work with the elderly, Greg. It's better if you call in sick for the day. You want me to get you cold medicine?”

“No.” He groaned miserably to himself, “Fuck. What am I gonna do?”

Kneeling there, Tom narrowed his eyes at Greg. He couldn’t recall ever seeing Greg sickly. The closest to it was when he was inexplicably riddled with sand mites this one time in Scotland. And he vividly remembered Greg responding to it poorly. Tom had gotten one of Karolina's assistants to fetch him an anti-itch cream, but Greg still spent the day scratching and moaning.

Tom rose to a stand and sighed deeply. “When was the last time you were sick like this?”

“First year of college, I think. My roommate gave me something for it, then I... I fell asleep in the middle of pre-calc right after. I don’t want that to happen to me, Tom.”

“You’re not gonna fall asleep in math class again. If there’s anything I can promise you with one-hundred percent certainty, it’s gonna be that,” Tom said. “I’m gonna go to the drug store and get you some supplies, okay? Call your work while I’m gone.”

Tom left the room and filled a glass with water, deciding to take the day off from work too. He instructed Greg to drink the water and text him if he needed anything else. He put on a coat and made his way outside. While he was warming up his car, he called Thanh. “Hey, morning.”

“Hey, Tom. How’s it going?”

“Things are good. I’m just, uh— Favor to ask. I’m not coming in today, so if any of my students come to my desk for office hours, can you tell them to email or call me?”

“No problem. You feeling under the weather?”

“No. I - I have something at home that I've gotta take care of. Nothing major, it's fine. I just know for a fact that only like four of my students read the emails I send out. Everybody’s freaking out about the exam coming up, so somebody might stop by. I really appreciate it, Thanh. I’ll talk to you later.” And he hung up, which he felt sort of bad about. On the way to the store, he concocted plausible stories in his head about car trouble or a mix-up with his bills to tell Thanh later. 

In the parking lot, Tom read a text from Greg: "can you get me something called melatonin? medicine"

"You got it :)" he replied.

He picked up two kinds of throat lozenges, non-drowsy cold medicine, and pain relievers. He located a thing of melatonin, which was a sleep aid and entirely antithetical to Greg’s aforementioned anxieties surrounding math class. He picked it up anyway. He grabbed an extra pack of tissues and a thermometer, just in case. And then he wandered over to the food section to find the boxes of instant rice that Greg liked. And orange juice and a pack of bendy straws.

Tom wondered if dealing with illness poorly was a Roy card that somehow made its way into Greg's wild deck of traits. Whenever Shiv got sick, she treated it like a staring contest; whoever blinked first lost. And, of course, she never lost. Any mention of her being sick was met with a dirty look or outright denial. He witnessed her get over a cold within a day and a half through concentrated aggression and a shit load of meds.

In the early years, Shiv was sweet to him whenever he was sick. She fetched him food and medicine, and she offered sympathy. He missed her a lot. That version of her. But that person was gone. She probably thought the same of him.

Once Tom got home, he deposited the food items into their appropriate places in the kitchen. When he got into Greg's room, he found him sitting up and staring blankly ahead with a frown. Tom asked quizzically, "What's that all about?"

"Huh?" Greg blinked back into focus. 

"How are we feeling?"

Greg settled back against the headboard of his bed, deflated. "I don't like this at all."

"Yeah, well. The bitch of living, right?" He dug through his bag to line the medicine up on Greg's bedside table. "We've got options, depending on what's bothering you the most." Taking off his shoes, he watched out of the corner of his eye as Greg opted for the berry-flavored throat lozenges. Tom climbed into bed next to him.

"Should you be that close to me? You'll get sick."

"I made out with you last night. I've accepted my fate."

"Aren't you going to work?"

"Nope. I called in. Did you?" He positioned a pillow against the wall so that he could sit up comfortably. He grabbed his phone. He had yet to send out a handful of emails, but they'd be easy to be taken care of right away.

"Yeah. They said it was fine."

"See? Easy." 

Greg laid his head down and moved closer to Tom inch by inch, then pressed his forehead against the side of Tom's thigh. Tom put a hand in his hair, threading his fingers through it soothingly. He let the calm settle around them as he typed out and sent his emails with his other hand. While he scrolled through his phone idly, he received an email from his mom. The contents of that email was nothing but a recipe from the internet for matzo ball soup.

"Were you texting my mom again?"

"Maybe," Greg said, evasive.

"Swear to god, you two are the worst."

Greg offered no explanation. He placed a hand to Tom's knee and jostled him a little. "You should rest too. Come here, I got you something."

"Um, okay." He slid himself downward, almost at eye level with Greg.

Greg handed him the box of melatonin, placing it on his lap. "This is for you. It'll help you sleep, I think."

"Greg—“

"I asked around at work. Edna and a bunch of her friends recommended this. It's safe, they said. Like, it’s natural brain chemicals or something?”

Tom studied the box. He had never heard of it before, but it sounded like hippie medicine. That homeopathic stuff.

“I know,” Greg said around the lozenge in his mouth. “But it’s worth a try. I looked it up and it sounds okay. So, um. Hey, Tom? I can’t remember if I mentioned this before, but you know my mom?”

“I know of her.”

“She has sleeping problems, too. Or she had them. She, like, self-medicates, you know? Um, but I guess the important part of this—“ he coughed into the crook of his elbow, paused for a sip of water. “Sorry. Important part? I don’t know. I think I just want us to be careful. Like, it started off as a sleeping problem, I think? That’s what my dad said, anyway. Kind of like what you have. And now I guess she’s pretty dependent on stuff that’s not this. She uses a lot of prescription stuff and it’s not always legal.”

“Okay. Right.” Tom nodded. He had heard snippets from Shiv and her brothers over the years about Marianne Hirsch. Never real details, but there was always a vaguely derisive tone there. Then again, that was very much the default with them.

“And I’m sorry that I wasn’t, like, truthful about you getting this for me. But I think you should try it.”

“I’ll think about it. Okay? And I mean I will.”

“Good. I’ll sleep if you sleep,” Greg said, shutting his eyes. “As long as we follow the instructions on the box.”

“Exactly,” he replied distantly. _As long as we follow the instructions on the box._ Why shouldn’t life be that easy, right? He didn’t know that about Greg’s mom. Greg wasn’t always easy to read and Tom had tried to mentally map out his history based on the odd detail mentioned. All he could figure out for sure was that Greg’s life was never linear, riddled with aborted contracts and commitments. When Tom had asked him whether he was ever in a longterm relationship, not including the affair with Warren, Greg took a long time to think about it and gave a couple incomplete sentences in answer. Tom didn’t know how things were supposed to work. Greg clearly didn’t either. This whole thing they had going on didn’t come with instructions.

Tom couldn’t make matzo because he didn’t have matzo meal, so he threw together what he had in the fridge into a chicken broth.

“I can feed this to you, if you want,” Tom suggested, only half serious, with two bowls in hand.

Greg didn’t appreciate that at all, so Tom laughed. He set the bowl on the bedside table and retreated to eat at Greg’s desk. 

Oddly, Greg slid out of his bed to sit on the floor and bury his face in the steaming soup. He asked into his bowl, “You’re really going to watch me all day?”

“Until you feel better, sure.”

“Why?”

Tom took a sip from his bowl, feeling kind of stumped by the question. He could’ve been at work by now. Greg had what he needed. In fact, Tom could still go to work, but he knew that he wouldn’t. He looked at Greg with his hair a mess and his sweatshirt askew. Tom was being irrational. That wasn’t a good answer.

“Why wouldn’t I?” Tom shrugged.

Greg didn't eat much, so Tom refrigerated the rest of the soup and washed the dishes while Greg slept. In the afternoon, he worked on his laptop at Greg's desk as quietly as he could. He received a text from Thanh about a student dropping by their shared cubicle.

Tom typed, “Let me guess. Was it Jackie? Glasses, short dark hair? Talks like her car is on fire?”

“Correct! She said she’ll email you.”

“I’ll be on the look-out,” Tom responded. Jackie tended to come up to him after class and at office hours with concerns. It took him a few conversations to realize that she wasn’t out for real answers from him. Most of the time, it took nodding and affirming sounds for Jackie to reach a conclusion on her own. Tom didn’t mind it, once he got past her frantic demeanor. 

“Thanks, Thanh,” he added. He shut his laptop, then climbed into bed with Greg. They napped together for a while.

When he woke up to the sound of sneezing, Greg was sitting on the floor again, but with used tissues all around him. Tom reached over for the box of cold medicine. He prodded Greg to take some and Greg only hunched lower to the ground with an aggravated noise.

“Seriously. It’ll help,” Tom said.

“You don’t have to do this,” he objected.

“Do what? Come back up onto the bed.” Tom stood, dragging the trash can closer while Greg, still on the floor, studied the back of the box of medicine with his brow in a furrow. He sat at the desk to provide some distance, in case that was what Greg was asking for.

“Hey,” Tom said. He waited for Greg to meet eyes with him. “Do you want me to— I don’t know. Would you... And this is a real question. Would you be more comfortable if I left you to recover on your own?”

Greg held the pill in his palm carefully like he was holding a bug. His gaze fell to the floor. Sniffling, he decided, “I don’t really know.”

“Well, I don’t know either. I mean, I don’t know what I’m doing or should be doing. I don’t know if I’m doing any of this right. So please just tell me to fuck off, if you need me to.”

Greg took the medicine with a sip of water, then shifted his eyes towards Tom. “I guess this is weird. Weird for me. Like, new. People don’t really do this for me, so.”

They shared a long stretch of silence. Tom didn’t know what to say and they both avoided eye contact in the meantime.

“I like you being here with me,” Greg provided.

“You do? You mean now? Today?”

“I mean— Yeah. But... At the same time, I can’t help but wonder if you’re doing all this for me because of that argument from last night.”

“Wh— About Kendall?”

“Yeah. Are you?”

Tom got down on the floor with Greg. He touched his ankle and answered, “No. I’m not, Greg. I’m here because I was worried about you.”

“Okay.”

Tom backed off from him and they sat facing each other. Thinking about it, he would’ve left in the morning if he was still bothered by it. He had done more spiteful things in the past. To Greg, especially. But not lately. These days, more often than he’d like to admit, he focused less on gaining the upper hand and more about _Where’s Greg_. 

He asked, “Why would you ask me to see Kendall with you?”

“Made sense to me at the time.”

“Will you talk me through it? I want to understand where you’re coming from. I mean, the answer’s still no. But I want to understand.”

Greg looked back at him warily and nodded. He crawled up into the bed and gave Tom a moment to join him there. He explained, “I‘ve seen you with your family now. And, I mean... it was good. It felt good to you, right? Talking to them? Showing them who you are now.”

“Yeah. I guess so.”

“I think— I’ve been playing around with this idea for a while. This is sort of related to why I went looking for you here. I want to try to talk to my family, too. I want to see them. But there are levels, right? There’s Kendall who I know. And I like him. But then there’s my dad and my mom.”

"You don’t already...? You talk to them, don’t you?”

“I haven’t seen my dad in person since, uh...” He squinted, calculating. “Over ten years. And I don’t actually know what continent my mom lives in right now? I've burnt so many bridges with people in the past. I thought it was the thing to do. I thought that was what I was going to do with you, but I didn't and— I don't know. Do you sort of get what I mean?"

"Yeah, no. I do, I think? I mean, it sounds like a good idea, sure. But - but you don't really need me for that. Do you?"

To that, Greg's shoulders sagged and his mouth formed a slight frown. It was an honest question, but Tom could see that that wasn't how Greg heard it. Now, he wasn't sure if he understood.

He asked again, perplexed: "Do you?"

"Tom,” he said, like a plea.

"What?" he said, like a dumbass.

Greg scooted himself backwards to bring his back against the wall. He looked down at his lap when he spoke. "I have these plans, right? I know they're not going to be easy, but I want to do it. But, the thing is..." His voice softened, "The thing is, I don't want to do it alone."

"Oh,” he replied. “Oh.”

Tom woke the next morning, expecting a sore throat or a cough. He was fine, but he worked from home anyway. 

“People are most contagious before they develop symptoms,” Tom rationalized. “I’m better off in quarantine with you.”

“Is that even true?”

“Sure it is. I read it somewhere.”

“Uh huh,” Greg responded, unconvinced.

Greg was out of his room, but still as gross as the day before. Tom gave him space throughout the day, but sometimes Greg coaxed him onto the couch to join him in his marathon viewing of nature programs on TV. Greg told him about butterfly sanctuaries on the Mexican border, and Tom reminded himself not to kiss him.

He hadn’t forgotten about Thanh’s invitation to speed dating, but had ideas for something else. Tom called Thanh up, telling him that they’ll do lunch.

“I’m buying,” Tom said. “To thank you for covering my ass at work. And I wanted to tell you about what I’ve been up to while I was out. It’s something about my roommate.”

“Sure. Sounds like a story, maybe.”

“It could be. Maybe.”

Thanh laughed on the other end of the line and it sounded like a kindness. “I’ll see you then, Tom.”

“Yeah. Later.”

Tom had friends and a new life, and he wasn’t alone. He was ready to talk.


End file.
